


congratulations

by lookingforatardis



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, Just angst, M/M, Songfic, Weddings, that's.... that's it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-11 00:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18671320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforatardis/pseuds/lookingforatardis
Summary: "I missed you," he breathes, the air skimming over me with his proximity."Clearly."The Perlman's attend Oliver's wedding and Elio has a lot of feelings. Title is from Blue October's song.





	congratulations

**Author's Note:**

> _My heart, my pain won't cover up ___  
>  _You left me---- ___  
>  _My heart won't take this cover up ___  
>  _You left me. ___  
>    
>  [listen here](https://open.spotify.com/track/5JBqISOEhyNyISj5E4THUO?si=jDQDMBFtSjyetO0g6q73Mg)

The pond didn't quite reflect the light properly. My mother ruffled my hair and spoke softly to me when I suggested as much, her arms encircling me as she reassured me we would return to Italy in no time, to wait for better waters. I stared at it for hours, the artificial ripples like echoes of the wind, the trees too foreign for my eyes, unfamiliar. I would wander the perimeter just to say I'd done it in an effort to find a single ounce of his life here that felt real, tangible, anything but manmade. I'd find a single space and stand strong, hold my ground, and imprint my very presence on the dirt he could claim authenticity to with a loud and unapologetic, "Do not forget the nights you were yourself."

He stops me before I get the chance, my feet inches away from beginning the journey when the low rumble of his voice cracks inside my chest. "What are you doing out here?" As if that was a way to greet someone who'd taken you apart inch by inch over the course of a number of weeks.

"Thinking."

"About?"

"Mistakes," I tell him, refusing to turn just yet. Turning meant letting him win, something I wouldn't dare give him now.

"Elio." I can hear the sigh in the letters and he breathes out, his pronunciation always more American, more aired out and breathless. "I wasn't sure you'd come." The words come after too long of a silence where I do not turn. In my demise, I at least have this. "Will you look at me?"

"Depends," I answer. I'd prepared this, thought of all the ways I might look him in the eyes and question his relationship, his very heart, let me voice carry out the words I'd longed to speak since I'd found out. Would he blush, retreat? Would he smile and shake his head, tell me I was foolish for believing he'd left behind his heart simply because he'd gone away with my own. He walks around to face me himself and the cold  _ did you think of her while inside of me _ dies on my tongue.

"I missed you," he breathes, the air skimming over me with his proximity.

"Clearly." Inwardly, he collapses, and I very nearly take it back. "I missed you, too," I try. He nods, but looks away. Too harsh, I've ruined it now, the last moments I'll be given with him before tomorrow, before he is lost forever.

"I will never be able to apologize for what I've done to you, and I am so sorry." His voice is far, buried under some unresolved hurt I itch to dig up and sink into so we may hurt not similarly, but in exactness. Still, he eyes the soundless ripples of the water.

"Does she know?"

"No," he tells me.

"Does anyone?" He looks at me finally and I know the answer, the reality check perhaps I needed. No one knows, no one will ever know. Here, he is not Oliver, lover of literature and antiquity and beauty. Here, he is Oliver the professor, the perfect picture of All American with his petite wife to be and picket fence I'm sure to go with her. There is no room for me here, no room for his secrets. I nod once and glance back at the house.

"My father brought a few books for you, be sure he gives them to you before the ceremony." He seems to nod, my attention is elsewhere though to avoid any emotion he may not cover. "It's a quaint town."

"No Crema," he says quietly.

"No, but nothing ever is."

"I wish I'd had more time with you."

"You could," I mumble, mostly to myself. When I look at him, I know he's heard, the shift in his lips, the curve of his body as he moves from one foot to the other. "No no, I understand. You want to be  _ good _ ."

"Elio," he sighs yet again. One night, I told him all he was allowed to say was my name or his, each mumble of my name finding meaning it never had before. He could speak only with my name and tell me his life story and I would understand. Could she say the same?

"I won't cause any trouble," I tell him in earnest. "I'm here because you wanted me to watch. So I will watch."

"I didn't call you here to watch." Then what? He has no answer for me, only a shake of his head and another  _ Elio _ that leaves nothing answered and everything open. If you want me, Oliver, if this is your confession, let it be louder, more exact in your wanting, so I might know whether to sneak into your bed tonight or leave it cold.

Eventually, he turns and heads inside, begs me to follow so I may gain some rest before the next day's activities. No mention of following to his room, nor any suggestion of the activities tomorrow not happening as planned. I stare at the ceiling in the room they placed my family and fade away with the hope that anything will ever change.

 

 

 

The ceremony would begin soon. I turn towards my father to meet his eyes in acknowledgement of his words, a simple nod of my head to assuage him. Elio, he calls a number of times, each mention the inflection altering to the realization that I may not answer, or follow for that matter.

The flowers were in full bloom here, vibrant and stretching towards the heavens in the heat, much milder than Italy, and I find myself wondering if he thought the same while dressing today in the soft humidity licking at his skin instead of the dense heat he experienced with me. "Elio." I look away from the bushes to meet his eyes. "Please. Let us go inside."

"It's an outdoor ceremony."

"Don't start," he warns, though I can see in his eyes the pity he must feel for me. Why insist I attend, I want to ask, though I know it will change nothing. He requested I come, my father will say. And we will go around in this circle once more where I attempt to refuse his wishes only to remember I am nothing if not loyal to his memory. My father knows this well, and so I go after him with only a few more mumblings.

I don't look at the chuppah, I can't. I don't look up until I must, until I feel the weight of eyes and conversation gathering around our presence. I glance up and notice a woman with blue eyes and blond wavy hair speaking to the side of us, her lips pulled high in a grin that slips my heart from my body. In an instant, I feel my mother's hand on my arm. Am I alright? I almost laugh, I would if I wasn't spellbound by his smile, the undeniable similarity reflected back at me as the woman, his mother I am sure, turns to smile at us. "You must be Samuel, we have heard such beautiful things of you and your family!"

I end up in a brief and tight embrace with her somehow against my attempts to escape the situation entirely, and before I know it he is in front of me, his hand on her shoulder as he speaks to my parents and his own mother, their words excited and alive with anticipation. I can't take the silence I feel he throws at me like weight. In an instant, it comes brutally down on me. He had left me, chosen to forget me, and would never return to Italy for me again. Sure, he might visit, his eyes might meet the countryside once more as a comfort, a vacation. He might bring his children to my home one day, show them the paths we'd walk hand in hand and the halls he'd pressed me against in earnest, too eager to make it to my bedroom. My stomach churns once more and he meets my gaze as if he knows, his face unchanging. He must know what he is doing, asking me here today. He must understand that he is killing me with his excited smile, the one I used to see early in the mornings when we'd wake up to go for a swim and swap suits in our attempt to get closer.

Perhaps it started as a curtesy, the invitation to us. She might have even suggested it, told him to invite that Italian family he spoke of on occasion. She would find our address and put it on a list only to forget until we called to say we'd received it, at which point Oliver undoubtably felt it his duty to extend a heartfelt plea for us to attend.

Or perhaps he never wanted me here at all, only assumed my parents would travel with me and me alone, refusing to leave me behind. I could have been the afterthought, the _ oh by the way, you should bring Elio if he's around _ .  I could handle being an afterthought, as long as his reasoning wasn't to see me one last time before saying goodbye forever.

Or even more likely as he stares at me, smile genuine but tight, hands deep in his pockets, he truly wanted me watch. After all, an announcement and a phone call only do so much to erase the possibility of more. I always knew he had the ability to be cruel, but perhaps I misjudged him all along. He could have wanted me to sit and take it, watch him kiss another in front of my eyes, declare his love for someone else. It was entirely possible he never even cared for me beyond being a warm and welcome fuck-- perhaps he never thought it would matter one way or another. Or his intention might possibly have been to force me to watch him promise himself, give me closure in a way he never could otherwise. In this, I hope it was his intent to save me from suffering later. He could know more of heartbreak, understand this would offer a cleaner cut then wondering at night whether or not he looked sincere when he married her. I dare not ask him, but it is this final option that prevents me from returning to my room to wait it all out.

Because the fact of the matter is, through it all, his smile is genuine. I would know, I like to think anyway. And if Oliver finds happiness here, then I was never the option.

He beams through the ceremony, though there is a moment when he looks at me and it falters, our eyes connected across isles of people rooting him on, burying who he is with each second that passes to plant a new version of him, straighter, more proper, under the watering of this wedding.

She must gather his attention because he looks away from me suddenly and swallows, smiles once more, and never looks back.

 

 

No one will give me wine at the party except my parents who promptly receive glares and tense words from the other parents. Fortunately, they seem unphased and my glass remains full through much of the evening. At one point, they try to convince me to stop, their words useless against the haunted echo of Oliver whispering secrets in my bed that swirls around the words  _ he left me _ on the tip of my tongue anytime I am approached. I am cut off eventually, but he still has not found me and I fear the moment he does I will sober instantly.

I attempt to sneak away, but am pulled back in, my parents wrapping their arms around me one at a time when my body caves and begins betraying me. The tears are fast and short lived, but there all the same before I regain control and step away for air that isn't clouded with their celebration.

It all gets to be too much, and at last I find an escape to the pitiful pond where I sit at the edge and watch the evening grow old in the stale stillness I feel in my bones more than the water. He finds me some time later and sits on a dry rocky area a foot to my left, his body too close and too far to account for the ring he now spins.

"I would have run anywhere with you," I tell him, because it's true, because it feels important that he understand. He knows, he tells me, his body shifting with the nod of his head. The act of sitting with him post-wedding is suddenly too much, too vulnerable, too real as the weight of what he's done settles in the inches between our body. I rehearsed so many things, but never this, never the  _ after _ to his wedding vows. This belonged in a book on a shelf, not in my current reality where I was expected to react to him in real time without completely ruining everything forever.

"I'm glad you came." And I almost believe him, save for the tremor I may actually imagine."I hope she brings you the happiness you want." I surprise myself at how much I mean it, how little I want him to hurt even now. No, for him I want only good things. I want the memories I could never give him, the life not permitted to people like us. I want his heart open and protected, not shielded from his own blood. In it all, I want this not to be a regret. And if it is a regret, I want to be the first to know, as I will be in the wings waiting for him at any moment of my life.

He thanks me, sounding touched, if not a little uncertain. He attempts to keep conversation, but the truth of the matter is too loud for me to ignore. I couldn't change his mind before, I won't be able to now that he wears a ring, and every second with him perpetuates the pain I feel building inside my chest as if it were the first goodbye all over again. The tears are inevitable, I realize, though he doesn't need to see. I attempt to walk away, but he grabs my arm, fire on ice, searing into a memory of this night I did not need any more than he did by the look on his face and in a breath of air I can't stop them from falling, my face suddenly damp. "Oh, Elio," and I'm in his arms, his cologne and her perfume on my clothes as he rubs my back like he once did. "I'm sorry. I feel sick about it."

"Don't tell me that."

"I'm sorry." But it changes nothing, I tell him. It changes  _ nothing _ , and he knows it, we all know it. Nothing matters now but the life he will start with her, a life where I am decidedly not included. We stand for a long moment, both of us settling on the realization that we know not when we will hold one another again. At last, he pulls away and steals a swipe at my face to dry my tears.

 

 

In the end, I told him this was not goodbye for good, and he smiled, nodded, promised to call soon. I had no reason to believe he would, but smiled nevertheless. We parted, he went to her, and left with her. The ripples in the water continued early into the morning as they cleared the party and everyone moved into the large homes they'd placed us in for the weekend, the tire tracks from where he'd driven off still visible in the stillness of night. I am brought inside by my parents, their worried hands soothing my hair and face as they pull me into our room and insist I dress for bed, read me until I drift off, and then help me under my sheets.

When I wake, over coffee, my only thought is a useless one. I find myself wondering how many days I might wish for this all to go away, drift off like the leaves in the pond. How many days I would spend forgetting him this time, if I would ever be able to truly. I think I might always wonder, hold a part of him close in case he wakes one morning wishing the same, wondering about me, only to call and ask if I would like to try one more time. I would meet him and hold him in my arms, whisper in his ear that I remember everything, and kiss him where the world would see, and finally, make him mine.

Until then, I sip my espresso and wish for it all to go away.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's been awhile. I appreciate the overwhelming love and support from the fandom more than you'll ever know. Thank you all for waiting for me to come back online and for the notes and comments you've sent my way in my brief hiatus. Yall are the best ily


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